


Home

by daisyglaze



Category: BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games)
Genre: F/F, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-11-02 03:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20604968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyglaze/pseuds/daisyglaze
Summary: On her way to a special date on a Friday night, Julie Langford has some time to think over some of the choices she made in her life, and others that were made for her.





	Home

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so I wrote this 5 years ago when I was 16 and, today, as I was cleaning my computer, came across this file. 
> 
> I thought it was pretty cute and, although my writing has changed a lot over these last years (and English isn't my first language), I thought I'd share it. It's very quick and I probably meant to write more at the time but, honestly, I don't even remember my intentions, it was so long ago!
> 
> I don't know if there is an active Bioshock fandom but, if there is, then I hope some Julie x Brigid shippers are out there. :)

**Home**

A quick glance at her wrist watch was enough to make Julie gasp. It was _11:05 p.m._, which meant she had once again spent way too long entranced by her plants, sitting by the microscope and writing away on her notebooks with a handwriting only she could decrypt. She had barely moved since lunch earlier that afternoon—captivated by the intricacy and beauty of the _Rose Gallicas,_ the hours had flown past her and what felt like a minute had actually been almost 8 hours. Her co-workers had most likely gone home by then. _Who did stay past eleven at work on a Friday anyways?_

Julie quickly grabbed her things and headed towards the reception, turning off lights and closing doors on her way out, and travelled through the marble-floored lab corridors and glass connector tunnels. The glass-made structures usually provided a glorious view of Rapture, but at that time of the night, not even silhouettes could be distinguished, the building’s edges blurred with the dark waters and disappeared, making the small rectangular windows that shined bright in their corresponding buildings and neon signs advertising cocktails and coffee bars the only visible things.

A little out of breath, Julie sporadically checked her watch to make sure she’d get to the next bathysphere on time—today of all days she had to be on time. After arriving at the reception she turned off the lights, grabbed the remaining mail, tucked it into her satchel and closed the door behind her.

The sweet scent of the flowers and the small murmur of the swaying trees and leaves reached Julie as she turned towards the lower running wheels, a place so filled with green and so abundant with life one could almost forget for a minute or two its was miles beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. _No sign of human life, _she whispered to herself. _I guess I _**_am _**_the only one working late on a Friday._

_________________________

Julie took a swift left and as she approached the entrance to the station, making the metallic _Securis _doors swipe up. As she crossed the threshold beneath the neon sign that read ‘Metro Station’ she shivered with the cool air and the haunting sound of water. In front of the timetable and with her hand thoughtfully holding her chin, Julie pondered whether to take the bathysphere to the _Welcome Center_ or to _Fort Frolic_ instead. They both had bathyspheres leading to _Olympus Heights_, her ultimate destination on that Friday evening.

But only the thought of passing through the _Welcome Center_ gave Julie the shivers. It reminded her of the very first day she stepped foot in Rapture. The stone floors and the golden ornaments. The Art Deco architecture that covered every square inch. Andrew Ryan staring coldly down at you. **_No Gods or Kings. Only Man. _**Reminiscing about it made her chest pound and her hands feel cold. _Guilt_. Guilt roamed through her system like a virus, one she couldn’t hide from, one she couldn’t shake off. 

**_Ding-ding. _**The bathysphere arrived. Julie climbed in and selected Fort Frolic.

Once inside and seated, she rested her back against the red velvet cushion and closed her eyes. The face of a woman took form behind her lids, she was staring at Julie, her eyes watery and her mouth curved slightly downwards. It took a while for her to recognize that face but when she did, a feeling of restlessness creeped in and Julie felt something turn in her stomach. She opened her eyes to try and get rid of that thought, but it lingered.

How had her mother felt, that gelid winter day in 1948 when she realized her daughter had disappeared? How had she felt when the day after that and the day after that her dear, only child did not return? No explanations, no satisfactions, simply gone. Her daughter nowhere to be found, some of her stuff gone with her and the rest left in her tiny apartment where they had always lived, now probably covered with a thick layer of dust.

Julie opened her purse and from it removed her wallet. A tiny piece of yellowed paper hid behind a picture of her treasured _Rose Gallica. _She pulled it and examined it carefully.

_1/7/49 _was scribbled in thin script above the newspaper article. _Goodness. Had it been so long? _Julie took a deep breath and started reading it.

**NOTED BOTANIST STILL MISSING**

BERKELEY - A researcher, praised by some colleagues

for her groundbreaking work, dismissed by others for

her radical theories, remains missing despite

an intensive investigation.

She knew it wasn’t good to keep that article with her. To revisit the one thing in life she felt guilty about. It was funny though, she never considered the city she was born in or the houses she had lived in her ‘home’. And it riddled her. It riddled Julie that ‘home’ was never a simple concept for her to grasp, for her to pinpoint. Once she had even picked up the dictionary to see if it would clarify her doubts about where her home was. It didn’t.

[1] the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household.

• a place where something flourishes or is most typically found.

• _informal _a place where an object/something is kept.

_The place where one lives permanently_. But Julie had never lived anywhere for long. Permanently seemed like such a heavy word. Nothing in life was permanent. Not her nor her precious, beautiful plants. Not even Rapture, a fortress which seemed to have been built to withstand every calamity that threatened it—it, too, would one day crumble and fall.

**_Ding-dong._ **_Welcome to Fort Frolic,_ the sympathetic sounding voice announced as the bathysphere door openedinto the hallway filled with sharply dressed people, waving tickets and shouting at acquaintances they recognized in the crowd. Behind the arched entryways across from where Julie stood was the colourful scenery of Rapture’s entertainment center, filled with neon lights and torchère columns, the checkered floor glistening and glimmering as hundreds of feet stomped its surface. **_The bathysphere to Olympus Height will arrive in 3 minutes. _**Julie sat on a bench near the glass windows and rested her hands on her lap. She was still holding the piece of paper.

_A place where something flourishes or is most typically found._

She remembered her mom had told her once. _Home is where your heart is._

Her heart was there with Brigid, in her lavish apartment, on the sofa by the TV, on the kitchen counter at breakfast, by the window overseeing the other tall, intimidating buildings that composed Rapture’s silhouette. Yes, her heart was there and she knew it.

She rang the doorbell and heard Brigid’s coarse and assertive voice shout “I’m coming!”. Julie smiled.

**_Home. _**_Informal. A place where something is kept. Where something flourishes or is most typically found. _Julie’s home was where Brigid was. How foolish had she been not to have seen this before?


End file.
